More than 20 Jewish community centers received bomb threats today, leading caregivers to evacuate children in cribs and wheelchair-bound elderly people. This was at least the fifth wave of bomb threats to target Jewish community centers since the beginning of 2017. The threats occurred in several states, and there was another wave of threats this evening.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer released a statement at the press briefing Monday about the President's reaction to the wave of crimes:

“The President continues to be deeply disappointed and concerned by the reports of further vandalism at Jewish cemeteries. The cowardly destruction at Philadelphia this weekend comes on top of similar accounts from Missouri and threats made to Jewish community centers around the country.“The President continues to condemn these and any other form of anti-Semitic and hateful acts in the strongest terms. From our country’s founding we’ve been dedicated to protecting the freedom of our citizens’ rights to worship. No one in America should feel afraid to follow the religion of their choosing, freely and openly. The President is dedicated to preserving this originating principle of our nation.”The Press Secretary's statement can be found here.http://www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/us-president-trump-condemns-5th-wave-of-bomb-threats-to-jccs-jewish-day-schools/2017/02/28/

Saturday at a campaign rally in Melbourne, Florida, prepping for a campaign more than three years in the future, President Trump referred to a terrible situation in Sweden. It came as news to the Swedish, and to the rest of the world. Here is what President Trump said:

"We've got to keep our country safe You look at what's happening in Germany. You look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They're having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what's happening in Brussels. You look at what's happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris."

Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Friday night appeared to be the source of the President’s remarks. The show included a clip from a film by Ami Horowitz, which claims to document violence, including rape, committed by refugees in Sweden. The film has been discredited by the New York Times and by the government of Sweden. The Swedish government asserts, with statistics to back it up, that a higher reported rate of rape in Sweden is due to the fact that more victims come forward in Sweden, not to more actual crime.

President Trump responded Sunday, not with an apology, as one might expect when a President had fallen victim to “fake news” and inadvertently propagated it at a rally of his supporters, but with an explanation.

The Swedish Embassy responded with a Tweet of their own.

Henrik Selin, a Swedish political scientist and deputy director of a government agency dedicated to promoting Sweden globally, told the British newspaper the Independent that he had “completed a study focusing on negative news reports about Sweden’s intake of refugees. He said there were many exaggerations and distortions, including reports falsely claiming that Sharia law was predominant in parts of the country.”

Interestingly, rumors of Sharia law in cities in the United States have been widely circulated on extremist U.S. websites. The rumors have been completely debunked.

Swedish policemen interviewed in the story shown on Fox were outraged. They assert that their interviews were disingenuously edited to fit the filmmaker’s agenda, with answers spliced onto different questions than had been asked.

It is becoming clear to many that it is not in the best interest of the country for a President to receive his news briefings from Tucker Carlson and a discredited right-wing filmmaker, rather than from the U.S. Intelligence Community.

​Mr. Trump's recent verbal attacks on journalism and journalists, particularly at his most recent news conference, take on an absurd quality when he is the one spreading "fake news" at his rally.

At President Trump’s first campaign rally, held in Melbourne, Florida four weeks into his administration, an enthusiastic crowd of 9,000 (according to the Melbourne Police Department and USA Today) cheered as First Lady Melania Trump read the Lord’s Prayer. Behind her several fans held “BlacksforTrump 2020.com” signs.

Photos and videos were widely shared on social media including Twitter and Facebook, especially by religious people who were touched that Melania had read the prayer. In sharing Melania's photo, the signs behind her were also widely shared. Reporters who had covered the first campaign recognized the people and the group providing a prominent backdrop for the First Lady's prayer.

Source: CNN

The “Blacks for Trump” group was well-represented at Trump rallies during the campaign. An article in New York Magazine, published in October of 2016, identified one of the men holding a sign as a former Yahweh ben Yahweh cult member well known in south Florida as “Michael the Black Man.”

According to Miami New Times, “Michael the Black Man” is also known as Maurice Woodside or Michael Symonette. The Yahweh ben Yahweh cult was led by Hulon Mitchell, Jr., Black supremacist founder of a religious movement, who served time in prison for crimes including conspiracy in a series of gruesome murders in Florida.

Last October, in the final weeks of a contentious and combative campaign, Trump mentioned the group, who held signs that said “Blacks for Trump Gods2.com,” from the podium at a rowdy rally in Lakeland, Florida.

Source: New York Magazine / ABC News Politics/ Twitter

A look at the website shows that the group (which, according to CNN journalist Joy Ann Reid, has about 4 members), promotes a mix of religious references and conspiracy theories related to the Illuminati ISIS, and world war.

Since this group was prominently shown in numerous photos and videos during the campaign, it is surprising that the advance team for President Trump’s 2020 campaign did not research the group before allowing them front row attention (and free advertising) at his first rally of this new, albeit early, campaign season.

President Trump had a free-wheeling news conference Thursday. He interrupted Jake Turx, a reporter (wearing a kippah) for the Jewish publication Ami Magazine, told him to sit down and called him a liar, when he tried to ask a question about what the president would do to combat the rising number of anti-Semitic incidents. Trump also had a strange interaction with April D. Ryan, Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks. She asked a question about the CBC, the Congressional Black Caucus. At first it seemed that Trump did not know what she meant by the CBC. She explained. He asked her if she could set up a meeting, perhaps thinking that she either knew the members of the CBC or that she was a member herself.

Both reporters were clearly confused and shocked by the bizarre reaction of the president to their questions.

Coincidentally, according to the Washington Post. April D. Ryan recently reported that Trump aide Omarosa Manigault bullied and "'physically intimidated' her her in a manner that could have warranted intervention by the Secret Service."

The President began his campaign for re-election in 2020 this weekend, flying to North Carolina to visit a Boeing factory, and then on to Palm Beach, Florida, where he will stay at Mar-a-Lago and hold a rally in an airport hangar Saturday evening.

The Trump campaign (which filed paperwork on January 20, Inauguration Day, to enter the 2020 race) sent out a link to supporters to a survey about the "mainstream media." the survey can only be submitted if a donation is made.

Today, the President had a Tweetstorm against the "dishonest media," posting a Tweet, deleting it, and then posting another Tweet.

Participatory democracy takes effort. Voting is important, but that shouldn't be the end of your involvement in our federal government. Your Senators and Representatives should hear from you on important issues. You can use snail mail, email, or call their offices.

When an important decision is being made by a House or Senate committee, you might want to call committee members who are not from your district or state. Lists of all the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, with their party affiliation and Capitol Office phone number, as of February 15, 2017, can be found below.

When you call the Washington, D.C. office, you might get a voice message or a staffer. Be ready with your name, state or district, and a brief message you want to get through. Staffers log every call.

Remember to call and thank your elected officials for their hard work when they do something you support. They hear plenty of complaints. It's nice to hear a message of gratitude once in a while.

Today Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee voted to block the Democrats from requiring the U.S. Department of Treasury to release President Trump’s tax returns. This was reported by The Chicago Tribune, The Hill, and multiple other news agencies.

Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey proposed the release of the returns in a letter to the committee’s chair on February 1st. The request is based on Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, which was last used to obtain President Nixon's tax returns.

House Democrats framed the issue as a matter of national security. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he has no business dealings with Russia. Democrats acknowledged that have no evidence otherwise. Given the recent resignation – or firing – of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Democrats assert that the American people deserve to know that Trump does not have connections to Russia – either assets there, or debts with Russian individuals, businesses, or banks.

However, Scott Dworkin, author of The Dworkin Report and senior adviser to the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, has reported that Trump has 249 businesses registered in the Russian Federation.

In addition, Donald Trump, Jr., who, with his brother Eric is a trustee of trump businesses for the duration of Trump’s presidency,. has talked about business projects in Russia. In a video on the Democratic Coalition website, made in 2012, he spoke to an interviewer in Latvia:

“I’ve been there many times, and I have spent quite a bit of time in Moscow looking at deals."

"And what do you do in Russia? What kind of projects?"

"It depends, I mean the things that I’ve looked at thus far, I’ve looked at everything from resorts to hotel, I was there last summer looking at a potential golf development, because that’s a big part of what we do also, high-end gold courses and championship type golf courses, a big part of what we do now is the hotel world, building, managing, branding high-end hotel assets, so any of those things would be possibilities.”

In another video on the Democratic Coalition website, Trump himself discusses his relationship with Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, while Trump was in Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant. Trump was co-owner of the Miss Universe pageant. He sold his shares in 2015.

“So when we talk about what the current politics are back at home, we know there is a tense relationship between President Obama and Vladimir Putin … do you have a relationship with Vladimir Putin? A conversational relationship or anything that you feel you have sway or influence over his government?"

"I do have a relationship and I can tell you that he is very interested in what we are doing here today … I do have a relationship with him … He’s done a very brilliant job in terms of what he represents and who he’s represented … he has eaten our president’s lunch …Putin has been able to show a certain leadership that our people have not been able to match.”

The Miss Universe pageant was held in Moscow in 2013, financed by Aras Agalarov, an Azerbaijani businessman who spent $20 million bringing the pageant to Russia, according to promotional materials from his company, the Crocus Group.

Trump has marketed Trump Vodka to the Russian market, specifically in Moscow, with at least one commercial containing an image of a statue of Vladimir Lenin. The commercial, on the Democratic Coalition website, has the Lenin image at 29 seconds.​The commercial can be found here.https://www.democraticcoalition.org/leaks

Univision news anchor Enrique Acevedo posted this photo to his Twitter account Sunday evening, February 12. The photo shows NSA Director Michael Flynn, in the red tie, to the left of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, in the beige tie. Bannon stands behind President Trump, in the blue tie, in the foreground. Prime Minister Abe of Japan, in the yellow striped tie, is rising from the table on the left.

NSA Director was in Palm Beach Saturday evening. Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev's jet flew into Miami Saturday morning, with a flight plan showing the came from Marseilles, France, and flew out again Sunday evening, with a flight plan filed for Bern, Switzerland.

Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and their children also spent the weekend in Florida.

For information on why Flynn being in Florida on the same weekend as a Russian billionaire with ties to Putin and the Trump businesses, please see yesterday's post.

UPDATE: Rybolovlev's return flight occurred Sunday evening., Miami to Berne, Switzerland. Screen capture from www.flightaware.com is included at the end of this post.

New update, Sunday, February 12, 2016, 8:42 pm PST: The return flight for M-KATE has disappeared from the Flight Aware website. The screen capture at the bottom of this post appears to be the last information available. It is highly unusual for a flight track to disappear from Flight Aware. This is a developing story.

​Donald Trump bought a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida in 2004. The property was auctioned for $41 million, according according to property records obtained by CNN. In 2008 he sold the mansion for $95 million.

CNN Money reported on July 27, 2016, that then-candidate Trump bragged about the great deal he got on the mansion:​"What do I have to do with Russia? You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach, Florida... for $40 million and I sold it to a Russian for $100 million including brokerage commissions."

The deed on the deal shows Trump Properties as the seller and County Road Property LLC as the buyer. The real buyer of the property was Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, which Rybolovlev admitted through a spokesman in 2008. His real estate agent verified this information to CNN Money in July.​Ryobvovlev is the owner of Uralkali, a Russian potash fertilizer producer and exporter. He is worth a reported $7.3 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

​While many critics have accused Trump of having ties to Russia’s government and money from Russian oligarchs, he has repeatedly denied these allegations. He has stated that the only connection he has had with Russia as a businessman is the deal described here. (This is in contradiction to the fact of Russian sponsorship of the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned and which was held in Moscow, in 2013.)

Why does this matter this weekend, when NSA director Michael Flynn is under fire for reportedly speaking about lifting sanctions on Russia, on December 29, 2016, with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., making Vice President Pence either a liar to the American people, a dupe for a rogue member of the Trump team, or a tool of a duplicitous Trump administration?

Yesterday, the jet owned by Rybolovlev, owner of the mansion bought from Trump in 2008, tail number M-KATE, landed in Florida. Rybolovlev was photographed on the golf course with President Trump, who was playing golf in Jupiter, Florida, as part of a working vacation with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe.

Information on the jet, from www.privatejetfan.com and www.flightaware.com, is shown below.

President Trump posted a photo of the golf outing on his Twitter account.

​​Conservative commentator Louise Mensch published the photograph on her Twitter account and pointed out that it appears to show Rybolovlev playing golf just behind President Trump on the course. The photo is shown below. Mensch added a Russian flag over the head of Rybolovlev. (Reason and Justice added the circle and arrow pointing to a clear photo of Rybolovlev from Wealth-X, a global wealth information-provider.

While President Trump and Prime Minister Abe golfed, according to USA Today, reporters were kept in a room with blacked-out windows so they could not see what was happening on the links.

All of the connections are circumstantial at this point. Still, it seems curious that a Russian oligarch who has previously passed money to Trump in a shell real estate transaction would have been on the golf course at the same time as the President, and that reporters and photographers were kept away.

UPDATE: MKATE (Rybolovlev's jet) set out on a return trip to Switzerland Sunday evening. So - total time in U.S. - a little over 24 hours, all on a weekend. Marselles, France --> Miami, Florida --> Berne, Switzerland on a weekend. Why? And where is NSA Director Flynn? And why did the White House press corps have to hole up in a room with blacked-out windows to give a golf game privacy?

​NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman spent time with National Security Adviser Michael Flynn when he was a highly respected military intelligence officer. Bowman has some insight into Flynn's approach to national security and his transformation into a conspiracy theorist and, it seems increasingly likely, a secret ally of the Russian government.

According to the U.S. intelligence community, Russia’s government interfered with the 2016 presidential election, with the intention of influencing the election in favor of Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton. President Obama announced on December 29, 2016, imposing additional sanctions against Russia in response to malicious cyber-enabled activities. There were already significant sanctions on Russia related to Russia’s incursion into Crimea, which is part of Ukraine.

It has been previously reported that Michael Flynn, a retired general working on the Trump transition team, spoke on the telephone several times with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak the day that President Obama announced the sanctions. This week the Washington Post reported that Flynn and Kislyak privately discussed sanctions on that day, contrary to public statements by Trump officials, including Vice President Mike Pence.

Even before the announcement of the substance of the conversations, according to the Washington Post, “Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions that were being imposed by the Obama administration in late December to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election.”

According to the article published Thursday, Flynn’s conversation included a promise that whatever Obama did in response to the Russian hacking, Trump could undo once he became president.

The conversations appear to violate the Logan Act, a United States federal law passed in 1799, which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments having a dispute with the U.S. The law was enacted with the intention of preventing the undermining of the government’s position with adversaries.

The implications for the Trump administration are significant. Here are a few of the ways the “Flynn Affair” may affect Trump’s leadership team.

Michael Flynn may be fired or forced to resign.

Vice President Pence may be implicated in the cover-up of the inappropriate contact and illegal communications.

Michael Flynn could be charged with a crime or crimes, ranging in severity from violation of the Logan Act to treason against the United States.

If it is determined that other members of the Trump administration were aware of the inappropriate communication, or if the communication was sanctioned by other members of the administration, other individuals could be charged with violation of the Logan Act or treason against the United States.

Finding out that the National Security Advisor, a Lieutenant General in the U.S. Army, engaged in inappropriate negotiations with the Russian government regarding sanctions raises a number of questions. First, why would Flynn engage in communications that, as a former Director of National Intelligence, he should have known were routinely monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies? This seems to point to either extreme naiveté or some form of mental impairment. Second, why would it be so important to Flynn to reassure the Russian government that the Trump administration would be friendly and solicitous, even though evidence showed clearly that the Russian government had interfered in the U.S. election?

The first question only Flynn can anwer, which will not happen he is interviewed under oath in a Congressional investigation or criminal trial. The second question is more complicated, but there is some evidence regarding Flynn’s relationship with Russia that may give some context for the phone calls.

A brief timeline of Flynn’s career and relevant events sheds some light on Flynn’s behavior.

1981: Flynn began work as a second lieutenant in Army military intelligence.

2002-2004: Flynn commanded the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade

2004-2007: Flynn served as director of intelligence for Joint Special Operations Command, with service in Afghanistan and Iraq.

​2007-2008: Flynn served as director of intelligence, United States Central Command

2008-2009: Flynn served as director of intelligence, Joint Staff.

2009-2010: Flynn served as director of intelligence, International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

2011: Flynn was promoted to Lieutenant General and assigned to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

2012: Flynn was appointed director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. While serving in this position, Flynn went to Russia and taught a leadership course to the GRU (Russia’s security service).

Flynn announced his retirement in 2014, a year earlier than expected. Reports indicate that he was forced out of the DIA after clashing with superiors over his chaotic management style and vision for the agency. According to a private email that was leaked online and reported on in the Washington Post, Colin Powell had said that he had heard in the DIA that Flynn got fired because he was “abusive with staff, didn’t listen, worked against policy, bad management, etc.” The New York Times reported the Flynn exhibited a loose relationship with facts. His subordinates reportedly referred to Flynn’s repeated dubious claims as “Flynn facts.”

2015: Flynn, less than a year after retiring from the U.S. Army, attended a dinner in Russia with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The event was an anniversary celebration for the Russia state-funded television station Russia Today (RT). According to Flynn, his trip was paid for by his speaker’s bureau. Questions remain about whether the trip was paid for by the Russian government. Flynn dismissed the controversy over his trip as ridiculous.

2015: The Trump campaign contacted Flynn as an advisor. Flynn reported also worked for the Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Scott Walker, and Ted Cruz campaigns.

In 2016 the Washington Post reported that Flynn’s former colleagues were worried about his increasingly outspoken and partisan views. “Former colleagues have contacted him to urge him to show more restraint. Among them are retired General Stanley A. McChrystal, who relied heavily on Flynn in Iraq and Afghanistan, and retired Admiral Michael Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen provided a written statement saying that ‘for retired senior officers to take leading and vocal roles as clearly partisan figures is a violation of the ethos and professionalism of apolitical military service.’ Officers are sworn to execute orders without regard for political positions, an oath to the Constitution that ‘is inviolable and presidents must never question it or doubt it,’ he said."

Why did Michael Flynn violate the Logan Act? At this point, we have more questions than answers.